The Portents got back to raiding this week. It was strange when we logged in last night and had to ask each other, "So, uh...what's the plan for tonight?" We had already killed everything.

We discovered (the hard way) that for the Malygos fight, having a druid around comes in REALLY handy. We tried Ol' Blue with two shamen and a priest, but it just wasn't happening. We were taking heavy damage during the vortex cycle of the first phase, and we'd never seen that happen before. We looked at the make up of the group and realized that normally we had a druid in one form or another. No kitty paw for extra hit points and resists. So we went back in a few days later armed with a tree. Confirmed: We were taking about 200-250 less damage per tick, and druid insta-heals were nice too.

This is the third time we've gotten Black Ice to drop, too.

We tried Sarth+1 recently, but went in ill-prepared. By that, I mean we hadn't read the strategies and it was getting really late to find one. We know we have the firepower to do it, so we went in on a wing and a prayer. It didn't work in our favor. BUT...strategies have been found, and now we're certain we can take out not just Sarth+1, but Sarth+2.

Sarth+2 is on notice. As Ktok put it, "We as a guild are now treating Sarth +2 as our next milestone to cross. It *has* to happen. There is no if ands or buts. We will not kill Sarth without less than two drakes up, unless it is the very end of the week and we are absolutely sure it will not happen yet."

Back in the lower levels, Team Level Appropriate took down the Scarlet Monastery graveyard on Sunday. We were all a hair away from 31, which was the recommended level for the Library. Unfortunately it was getting late to try out that wing, too.

This weekend we'll be teaming up with Insurrection for a run on Naxx-25. We're pretty excited to have a go at it and see what happens!

Also in the plans is a week of Old School raids. Yes, as in taking a bunch of people to take out everything from Onyxia to Sunwell, guided by a bunch of level 80's. It'll be fun to see content that many of us have never seen before and get the achievements. (Remember, most of PA migrated to WoW after BC launched, so near the end of BC we were just getting enough people to the level cap to take out Kara and ZA. So a lot of this we've just never seen before.)

Some people are trying to get characters copied over to the PTR to see what might be in the works. We're aware that what we see on the PTR might not be the end result when 3.1 goes live, but it's still fun to see. We're already squeeing over some of the changes released so far!

Reflections: The "Hot Lips" edition

Written by Ailinea

Monday, 16 February 2009 16:05

We took a break from raiding this past week. Many members out of commission on Friday and Saturday due to VD (Valentine's Day...get your minds out of the gutter!), there was some illness going around, some were banging their heads against walls trying to get candy bags, and others just wanted a week off since we'd been raiding every week pretty much since December.

Of course, this break seemed like a good idea last Monday, but by Saturday people were asking when we were going to raid again. *twitch twitch* Yeah, it can be addictive.

So Sunday we did our usual 25-mans, taking down Sarth and Vault, then we did Vault again on 10-man. We're going to try to go after Malygos again tonight, and regular raiding starts again tomorrow with the reset.

We've also opened up to recruiting new members again now that our recent additions seem to have settled in. We'd like to see 5 new members by the end of March, but prefer quality over quantity. There are a few people who have been brought to our attention as potential members, and we like taking things slow to make sure everyone is happy. No more repeats of a sudden flood of members. Learned that lesson in EQ2. Most guilds don't survive it. We don't want to play chicken with our luck on that front.

TLA didn't happen this week due to aforementioned illness. That's okay, it's forgivable. We'll go beat up some Scarlet Crusade members next Sunday.

Many alts reached notable levels (70 and 80) this week, too. Strangely, all the ones I can think of are rogues. Sneaky bastards....

Our usual raids have taken place. Naxx keeps falling to us, as do Sapph, KT, Malygos, Arch, and Sarth. Whee!

We got to experience first-hand the Sapphiron bug where the AoE was doing double-damage to the party. We thought at first that the changes to Circle of Healing was the reason the healers couldn't keep up, but it still didn't make any sense. It was a nerf, but not THAT extreme. Then we found out about the bug. Niiiiiice. On the plus side, we *did* eventually kill Sarth despite the fight being harder. So of course when we went in this week, we one-shotted him because it was suddenly "easier." Gotta love the comparison.

Again, we've been bringing "new" (I hate calling them "new" because they're not...and not "inexperienced" because they aren't...) folks into the raids, allowing the original raiders a chance to cycle taking a break, and giving others a chance to gear up and get badges.

Sunday hosted 25-mans are still going well. Not only is the PA roster benefitting from it, but we're making connections to others who have an interest in having some fun and getting a fair chance at some loot that they otherwise might not have a shot at. (The joy of scheduling it for a guaranteed time and day.) We've prided ourselves on being fair: If you came along for the kill, you have a right to roll no matter what tag you have over your head. That said, I'm disappointed that some people have taken that generosity for granted. It's to be expected, though. We try to keep note of those people and not invite them back. Funny how a simple "Thank you" or word of appreciation goes a long way to getting more than just your gloves.

Hey, I'm a fire mage with a personality to match! WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?!

In other news, Team Level Appropriate took down Razorfen Kraul last weekend, and Gnomeregan last night. It was nice having a bit of a challenge, and also to have loot dropping that we can actually use. We're doing these dungeons at their "suggested levels" but the upgrade drop rate can be a little frustrating at times. At least the quest rewards have been useful.

Alts happened. Epic RP happened.

It's all a blur right now.

(I'll let people fill in their own accomplishments. All I know is I'm now the HATBOSS, and I don't think anyone will be taking that title any time soon.)

This past week...again, busy with the raiding. But we've been taking new folks into Naxx so they can learn the fights and gear up, so it's always an interesting experience.

What to say? The fights are becoming easier, even with the folks just stepping into the zone. It definitely helps when you have a bunch of people who are now over-geared for 10-man, but the new-to-Naxx folks are holding their own.

So we blew through the zone there, and then got hung up on Sapphiron. Considering some of the people were on their first week in Naxx, that wasn't a bad point to get hung up, and they should be proud of their work on the other bosses. We couldn't figure out what was going "wrong" with our attempts on Sapph (although I can think of one or two attempts where we had some bad luck in ice block placement), so we took the "veteran" team in to clear him out and re-analyze what techniques work best and what we might have been doing wrong. As you can expect, we got Sapph down, got a little more insight on him, then went to clear out the last two bosses.

Before I go any further, I have to explain the title of this entry. According to Jez, someone on Twitter created rules for the Naxxramas Drinking Game. For example: if you fall off the pipe going to Gluth, you get the ===::PIPEBOSS::=== championship belt in your guild info (right now, Canivoris bears that honor) and you are to finish your drink. If you fall off the ledge while jumping to Thaddius, you get the ===::LEDGEBOSS::=== belt and must finish your drink. We omitted the drinking part of the drinking game, but still have had some fun with the rules.

One of the rules is "If you pull a whole alcove on KT." Grats, Leo! XD Or should we congratulate your pet?!

Anyway, we had a few hiccups on KT as well, but finally focused and got him down. And then we proceeded to one-shot Malygos. I have to say, I think the "veteran" 10-man squad has the Malygos fight down, and we're excited to start teaching it to some of the up-and-coming 80's.

For the record, Leo did finish the video editing and I have it on the server. I just need to work out some kinks with Gallery so it is viewable. And try to not hose my connection with my webhost's security again.

We also did Archavon and Sarth on both 10- and 25-man. The Archavon 10-man fight was actually rather amusing. We have this issue where if Xendayr forgets to change the looting to Master Looter at the beginning of the raid, then we will totally own the raid targets. Something *must* go wrong. Well, before we went in to take care of Archavon, Campitor reminded Xen to set the looting to Master Looter. *commence groaning* So we went in to the zone, and cleared the trash. Xen died once, but we thought that was due to bad luck of the healers all running out of the way of a rock fall at the same time. When we took on the boss, we had another experience all together:

We got Archavon to about 85% when Xen called out that we needed to pour on the DPS or we'd never get the timer. We were a bit baffled because we'd aced the fight before. Then Grissle looked at Archavon's hit points. "Uh, guys? This is heroic...." We were 10-manning the 25-man instance. And doing quite well, actually. But we knew we wouldn't be able to pull it off, so most everyone was able to get out when we made the call to retreat. Xen reset the zone to normal, and we went in and spanked him.

Sarth 10-man was easy. We're going to try for doing Sarth+1 soon. We also pulled in a few guild friends to take down Sarth and revisit Archavon on heroic.

Again, I have pictures, but need to edit and upload them.

Today is Patch Day. Oh yeah, and something about some shindig going on in DC....but PATCH DAY!